Keen fighting game fans may already have Evo 2014 in their diaries, taking place at Las Vegas Hotel & Casino between 11-13th July and all set to be streamed online to thousands of eager fans. Those that followed last year's events may also recall the controversy and happy ending over its Super Smash Bros. Melee competition — there was an outcry online when Nintendo refused permission for it to be live-streamed, before thankfully backtracking on the decision. It wasn't a black and white scenario — Nintendo had its reasons — but most would agree that the final outcome was correct.

The tournament went ahead and was a huge success, with the organisers and fans making clear that they hoped to use the game again. The good news is that there'll be another Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament this year, with the organisers issuing confirmation; hopefully that means permission has been granted to avoid any similar controversies. With the new Super Smash Bros. on the way to Wii U and 3DS this year, it'll also do its part to raise awareness of the series ahead of the fresh arrivals.

I doubt they'll ever use a newer game than Melee. The fighting crowds don't like the random elements such as tripping. The blue shell of Mario Kart is the same thing. To me, they make the games more fun, but these guys want games where the best player can win, without luck playing such a big part.

Melee is better competitively than Brawl and it's nice to see Nintendo wasn't as stupid as last year but it'd be nice if Smash Wii U was somewhere near ready to have some demos out or something. If Nintendo showed up with demos of Smash Wii U at EVO it would show they aren't as anti competitive play and scene and anti broadcast without explicit permission as they currently are.

It would be nice but Nintendo has yet to publicly acknowledge the fact that Smash Bros. is big in the fighting game community the way Capcom has with Street Fighter. Maybe we'll see a change this year with SSB for Wii U since it's around the corner.

Don't get why they are using the 360 version of KoF XIII because it is dire. (Suppose Microsoft is some sort of sponsor). But they are using Ultra Streetfighter IV supposedly also on the 360. (Surely the Arcade version is the gold standard for any of those games).

@Chaos_Knight That's no excuse. Project M has already got a lot of tournaments in the past few years, including at APEX (where there were more people playing Project M than Brawl), The Big House 3, and CEO. Plus, it's actually not bad at all for Nintendo; in fact, Project M is actually great for Nintendo. The PMBR have been trying to do their best to stay in Nintendo's good graces by not including any new characters that aren't already in Brawl (Mewtwo is a trophy, Roy is a sticker and also has a song), as well as using costumes that are still the same character (Doc, Dry Bowser, Pajama Ness, etc.). Plus, you don't have to pay money to play Project M, which is great because it makes it a legal mod to use, as well as letting Nintendo potentially make money off of new Brawl copies that are used to play Project M. If Nintendo wanted to get rid of Project M entirely, along with other mods like Brawl Minus and Balanced Brawl, then they would've done so a long time ago.

I don't think we will ever get another smash game that is close to as competitive as melee is seeing as Sakurai is pretty opposed to doing simple balance changes like grab mechanics, one airdodge, and changing hitstun to be enough for followups. I am unimpressed by the ledge grab mechanics because people don't need a handicap getting back up if they are on low hp. If the opponent edge guards properly and gets you, you deserve to die. Edge guarding has risks and benefits depending on where your enemy is.

As long as Sakurai is in charge, all we will get is a plain party game with no competitive elements.

Sakurai won't die from old age, some sort of freak accident, or even drug abuse related to his chronic arm pains. Melee fanboys will be the end of him, and they'll dance on his grave in a way that looks like wave dashing...and then one of them will trip...and at that moment they'll realize the irony and childishness of their years of incessant whining. Then they'll just make a project M2.

@Luigifan141 Evo specifically probably won't run Project M because it's the biggest fish out there, and Nintendo still has final say over what shows up. Melee had the support of thousands of fans but a comparatively niche mod might not. Basically, it's about staying on Nintendo's good side.

And unless they update the Wii U to support wired controllers, I don't think we'll be seeing big SSB4 tournaments. Wireless interference is a real issue and even just the local lounge at my college had enough interference to cause dropped inputs for a wiimote-nunchuck player. Imagine now hundreds of Wii U's set up in the same room, along with the countless number of cell phones, laptops, etc. It'd be a nightmare.

@R_Champ Except we don't even bother bugging him about changing anything because he probably doesn't listen anyways, after brawl we are generally looking forward to the next smash game but not holding our breath for it to be anywhere close to having a competitive scene that matters. Melee fans have never bothered to complain to Sakurai because we still have Melee. If Smash 4 isn't competitive enough to be recognized at something like EVO in the long run then we will just go back to melee. Some people may go to project M, and it is a neat mod, but melee will still be a fun game to go back to as long as there is no good recent installment for competitive smash.

All he needs to do is look at things like EVO and see what should be POSSIBLE in smash even if it isn't for everybody. Wavedashing is useful and although it is a big part of competitive fighting games in general I could see the game still being competitive without it, Blazblue does it. It is good to have wavedashing and helps a lot but unlike L canceling(or landing lag recovery being faster for followups), Grabs being more balanced like in melee(Based on reading opponent's DI/Dodge), and hitstun so you can actually gain an advantage over the opponent by being offensive...not having wave dashing won't mean the death of competitive play. Again, I cite Blazblue.

And why should people have a problem with the competitive scene? We don't hurt anybody, and we do teach those willing to learn so we can increase the communities' size. It really is only people who are not part of the community who give Melee players a bad name with silly ideas like we only play Fox on Final Destination or if you don't play top tier you don't have a chance(look at ganondorf). Even wavedashing is not really that needed as some players, like Japanese player Aniki, play without it.

@KeithTheGeek Well said. I still think that Project M at EVO would be great for the Super Smash Bros. fandom, but it's okay if they never hold Project M at EVO also, as long as it has a great competitive scene and some major tournaments (like it already does). Plus, like you said, having an official game like Melee over a more niché mod does make a lot more sense if Nintendo is going to sponsor it, and since more people play Melee than Project M, that means that it will have a higher turnout overall.

Also, an update should be released for the Wii U that allows Wii U Pro Controllers to function as wired controllers if they're plugged into the USB slot. That would be a decent workaround for the wired controller problem.

@DiscoDriver43 Brawl is much worse competitively compared to Melee, as well as not as popular. If you ever watched a Brawl tournament, you'll notice that tripping can make or break a match, the metagame somewhat relies on camping and stalling, and the Top 4 will usually have at least one Meta Knight. Meta Knight is known as the most broken and easy-to-play character in the game, bar none. In Melee, there's tons of advanced techniques like wavedashing and l-canceling that take some practice to use efficiently, a more balanced roster of characters, and much faster gameplay that makes the game even more exciting to both play and watch.

As for MvC2 and 3 being played competitively... let's just say that, as long as there's a fighting game, it will most likely have a competitive scene, no matter how big or small it actually is. Even though MvC2 is horribly unbalanced (Serv ot? Really?) it was a popular game to play until MvC3/UMvC3 arrived, but it still has a following even today. UMvC3 is much more balanced, but as you said, it's not perfect. In fact, no fighting game has a perfect balance, and they never will. It's hard to balance out characters who have different playstyles, and there will always be a character that can do something else better because of that. Regardless, the Marvel vs. Capcom games will always be popular choices for competitive play, as will many other games that have balance issues. Why? Because people love to play what they play, regardless of how good or bad others think they are.

Ah thanks for the answer Luigifan141. I assume you are a partcipant of the fighting game competive scene i guess or a watcher of it? Yeah, tripping is such a poor design. I really don't follow fighting games too much, though i like to play them.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and 3 are my favorite 2d fighting games Traditonal, Smash bros is my favorite but i kind assumed that the fighting game community would just laugh at the poor balance.

@DiscoDriver43 Because a fighting game being unbalanced doesn't mean people won't play it competitively? I would say the ultimate version is decently balanced for marvel. It is random elements and the inability to get ahead of your opponent by combos that would stop co.petitive scenes. I play marvel as well but am not as good at it compared to melee.

@DiscoDriver43 I've actually just started going to Super Smash Bros. Melee and Project M tournaments this year, but I've been keeping my eye on competitive fighters in general for a long time.

Also, Super Smash Bros. N64 is my favorite SSB game too, but I feel like it's not meant to be played competitively compared to Melee and Project M. I know that SSB64 has a decent competitive scene, but I've never been a fan of playing that or Brawl competitively.

For some reason i'm excited for the super smash bros competition knowing this might let us know something about the 3DS and Wii U version, but I may not be able to watch the stream competition because I could be glued to Mario kart 8..